How 5G Is Going To Change Everything

By Rachel Lewis, May 30, 2018

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Just like every technological advancement, the next is set to be a huge deal, and such is the case for 5G. The wireless technology is expected to power self-driving cars, virtual reality, smart cities, and networked robots. Researchers from King’s College London who have joined with Ericsson (ERIC) to dream up futuristic applications for 5G have looked at everything from music to medicine.

The team is working towards using the technology to transfer physical skills across networks and creating what they are calling the “Internet of Skills.” “With 5G and the new networking architecture we’re building, we’re hoping to get this delay down to just the speed of light,” said Mischa Dohler, a professor of wireless communications at King’s College.

Furthermore, 5G will hopefully allow a surgeon with virtual reality equipment to work on the other side of the world via a robot. They will use haptic gloves, which will allow the surgeon to sense motion and pressure when operating on a patient and can get instant feedback via the gloves.

Dohler also works as a composer and pianist, so he hopes to teach people with his piano skills remotely. Haptic gloves will allow users to track and record the movement of Dohler’s fingers, and the positioning of his hands.

The aspiring pianist can then find and download the data on a skills database. “They would download that in real time on to an exoskeleton, which would start to move their fingers until the muscle memory is trained,” said Dohler. “They could actually practice their muscle memory anywhere they want,” he added.

The same could then happen for a surgeon, who could upload their skills to a database and, therefore, train students around the world. Meanwhile, Dohler does not expect this to happen overnight and believes it could take the “Internet of Skills” another decade before it is fully functional.

“We need to get security rights and the best practice of this technology right, because the moment you start moving things on the other side of the planet, you can do a lot of harm,” he said.